World cup kicks off in 30 days, yet Brazil is not ready

It's all coming down to the final 30 days.

Brazil had seven years to get ready for the World Cup, but it enters the final month of preparations with a lot yet to be done.

Three stadiums are still under construction, some of the temporary structures needed for matches are delayed and it remains unclear if all cities will have time to organize the mandatory fanfests.

It's already known that not all infrastructure will be completed no matter how much organizers rush before the June 12 opener. The government acknowledges that communications inside stadiums won't be perfect, unfinished airports remain a concern and there are widespread threats of violent protests by Brazilians complaining about the billions of dollars spent to organize the tournament.

Brazilian officials guarantee everything will be fine. FIFA remains concerned.

"All arrangements are being made to guarantee a successful tournament," says Brazil's sports ministry, which is in charge of getting the country ready for the World Cup. "The meetings to finalize the operational plans in the varied areas involved in the event's preparations will be concluded this week in all 12 host cities."

Jerome Valcke, secretary general for soccer's governing body, says there's no time to waste.

"I would not say it's not ready, but it's not finished," he said recently.

"You feel that the competition is coming, so there is an excitement," Valcke toldFIFA.com. "In the meantime, it's important to test everything and making sure it's working. The pressure is there to make sure we will be perfectly ready."

The local governments have the responsibility of making sure everything is working to receive the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for the monthlong tournament, from transportation to public services to security.

FIFA is worried mostly about the stadiums where the 64 matches will be played. It wanted all venues completed by the end of last year, but Brazil was not able to get half of them ready in time. Many will not host all the test events that were planned.

Among the three stadiums under construction is the Itaquerao, where the opener between Brazil and Croatia will be played. There will be some 14,000 guests among the nearly 70,000 people in attendance, including many heads of state.

Some of the 20,000 temporary seats needed for the opener are still being installed, and the only official test event planned for the Itaquerao takes place Sunday, about three weeks before the opener. It won't even happen in front of a full crowd, with only 40,000 fans allowed into the venue.

"For the World Cup it will all be 100 percent ready," said Andres Sanchez, who is in charge of the stadium's construction.

Another unfinished stadium is the Arena da Baixada in the southern city of Curitiba, which was nearly excluded from the tournament by FIFA this year. The first full test at the venue is scheduled for this week.

"There were some setbacks in some of these stadiums," said Brazil's Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo, who has been arduously downplaying the delays. "Everything will be ready."

There is also concern with the temporary structures at the Beira-Rio Stadium in southern Porto Alegre, and the other incomplete venue is the Arena Pantanal in the western city of Cuiaba, which is only expected to host an official test event at the end of the month.

Cuiaba is one of the cities where authorities acknowledge some infrastructure work planned for the World Cup will not be ready. Projects also won't be done in many other cities, including at airports that will be crucial for the travel of teams and fans.

In the northeastern city of Recife, local authorities still haven't found private partners to host the fanfest, which allows fans without tickets to watch matches for free on large screens in public areas. FIFA has threatened to sue the cities that don't organize the event.

Brazil was the sole candidate when it was selected as host in 2007, but it took a long time before any World Cup work began.

"It is difficult. Maybe we should have involved the Brazilian government before," said Valcke, who recently acknowledged that FIFA has learned lessons from all the problems in Brazil and "will act differently" in Russia in four years.

Brazil is scrambling in great part because it pushed to stage the tournament in 12 cities instead of the eight that FIFA wanted. Brazilian federation president Ricardo Teixeira, who resigned in 2012 while implicated in taking tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks from World Cup deals, made the push mostly to please his political supporters at the time.

Brazil's is expected to spend $11.7 billion on the World Cup, although the government says that long term the country could receive an economic boost of as much as $180 billion.

The high costs, blamed in part by the late rush to get projects done, ignited a wave of public criticism from a population already tired of poor public services and widespread corruption. Many of the protests during last year's Confederations Cup were aimed at FIFA, and more are expected next month.

"It is easy to criticize FIFA, it's easy to use the Confederations Cup or World Cup to organize demonstrations," Valcke said. "But the target is wrong if the target is that FIFA are the reason for what's happening in a country. If a country is bidding for a World Cup, it's with the idea of developing the country and not with the idea of destroying the country."
Culled from HUFF POST

29 yr old teacher 'had sex with three of her students during a house party'

Accused: Ellen Niemiec, pictured, allegedly slept with three of her students on the same night

A married teacher in the US has been accused of having sex with THREE students at a house party, as well as on the school's grounds.

Mother-of-three Ellen Niemiec is charged with sleeping with the three male students, all within 24 hours, as well as sending them nude photos, Daily News reports. The teacher, who works at Cross High School in South Carolina, is facing three sexual battery charges, two of them felonies, as two of the students were 17 years old.

“When a teacher violates a student’s trust, she violates the whole community’s trust,” Det. Brian Fenton with the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office said in court Thursday,WCIV-TV reported.

Mike Bosnak, representing the three victims, said some of the inappropriate behaviour took place in the classroom.

“It started with dirty talk, then they were texting. She was texting nude pictures and that kind of stuff. Then just from there, it just went on. Some of it took place at the school. She also was picking one of them up in the morning and had sex with him in the morning and then in the afternoon,” Bosnak said.

Niemiec's defence lawyer insists his client is innocent, saying: "She feels for the Cross community that this situation has occurred. She is saddened for anybody affected including her own family and any alleged victims."

Culled from Huff Post

Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert bags six years in prison for corruption

Ehud Olmert 

 Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his role in a wide-ranging bribery case, capping a stunning fall from grace for one of the most powerful men in the country and marking the climax in a lengthy campaign against corruption in Israeli public life.

With the sentencing, Olmert became the first former Israel prime minister to be sent to prison. He joins a former Israeli president, Cabinet minister and several lawmakers who have all served time in recent years.

The cases have sparked shame in the country's elected officials but also pride in its justice system, proving that no one in Israel is above the law.

Judge David Rozen, a Tel Aviv district court judge, delivered the punishment in the Jerusalem real estate scandal case, which was related to Olmert's activities before he become prime minister in 2006. Tuesday's sentencing followed a guilty verdict that was handed down by the same court in March.

"A public servant who accepts bribes is akin to a traitor," Judge David Rozen read in court.

"This is a man who was on top of the world. He served as prime minister, the most important position, and from there he reached the position of a man convicted of criminal offenses," Rozen added, referring to Olmert.

Rozen ordered Olmert and a series of other former government officials, developers and businesspeople who were also sentenced to appear before the prison service on Sept. 1. Olmert was also fined $290,000.

The 68-year-old Olmert, who stood stoically in the courtroom in a navy blue shirt, insisted he is innocent and never took a bribe.

His spokesman Amir Dan called it a "sad day" in which an "unjust verdict" was delivered against an innocent man. He said Olmert would appeal both the verdict and the sentence to Israel's Supreme Court.

"It is a very serious sentence and we put our faith in the Supreme Court," Dan said outside the courtroom.

Should Olmert end up in prison, special arrangements would likely have to be made to accommodate such a senior official who still enjoys round-the-clock security.

According to the verdict, millions of dollars illegally changed hands to promote a series of real estate projects, including a controversial housing development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws and earned developers tax breaks and other benefits.

At the time, Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and was accused of taking bribes to push the project forward. He was forced to resign as prime minister in 2009 amid a flurry of corruption allegations.

Olmert was a longtime fixture in Israel's hard-line right wing when he began taking a more moderate line toward the Palestinians a decade ago, as deputy prime minister. He also played a leading role in Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

He became prime minister in January 2006 after then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke. He subsequently led their newly formed Kadima Party to victory in parliamentary elections on a platform of pushing further peace moves with the Palestinians.

A gifted orator, Olmert crossed a series of taboos while in office — warning that Israel could become like apartheid South Africa if it continued its occupation of the Palestinians and expressing readiness to relinquish control of parts of the holy city of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal.

Olmert led his government to the Annapolis peace conference in November 2007 — launching more than a year of ambitious, but unsuccessful peace talks with the Palestinians.

Despite his ambitious agenda, Olmert's term was clouded by the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier who was captured by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid and an inconclusive war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Both incidents occurred shortly after he took office. Olmert also launched a military invasion of the Gaza Strip in late 2008 that drew heavy international criticism.

But it was the corruption allegations that accompanied much of his political career and ultimately proved his undoing. He stepped down to face various charges from his time as mayor and later Cabinet minister.

Olmert has already faced a trial on separate charges of accepting illicit funds from an American supporter and double-billing Jewish groups for trips abroad. In that case, he was cleared in 2012 of the most serious charges but convicted on a lesser count of breach of trust for steering jobs and contracts to clients of business partners and got a suspended one-year sentence.

That verdict was seen as a moral victory, and Olmert had signaled an intention to return to politics if he could beat the charges against him in the real estate scandal. He had been seen as one of the few politicians capable of mounting a challenge as a centrist alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the center of the case was the Holyland housing development, a hulking hilltop project that Jerusalem residents long suspected was tainted by corruption.

The case broke in 2010 on the strength of a businessman, Shmuel Dechner, who was involved in the project and turned state's witness. Dechner died last year from an illness.

The indictment against Olmert laid out one of the largest corruption scandals ever exposed in Israel. It accused Olmert of seeking money, through a middleman, from Holyland developers to help out his brother, Yossi, who fled Israel because of financial problems. According to the indictment, Yossi Olmert received about $100,000.

Ehud Olmert was also accused of asking the middleman to help out city engineer Uri Sheetrit, who also had money woes. Sheetrit later dropped his opposition to the broad expansion of the Holyland complex, which burgeoned from a small development into a massive, high-rise project that sticks out from its low-rise neighbors. According to the indictment, Sheetrit received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Among those also sentenced on Tuesday was Sheetrit, who was sent to prison for seven years. Others were sentenced to terms of between three to five years.

Across the political spectrum, officials expressed grief over Olmert plight while also faith in the country's court system. President Shimon Peres said it was a sad day for him personally.

Liat Ben-Ari, a state prosecutor, said Tuesday's sentencing must be read and internalized by all.

"Those who give bribes and those who take bribes are corrupt and those who are corrupt, their fate is the same one: a long term in prison, a return of the corrupt money to the state and a mark of turpitude," she said. "No one is above the law and those who commit crimes will be punished."

Culled from Huff post

Australian woman gives birth to conjoined twin girls who share a body but have 2 brains and 2 faces

Two girls in one body: Renee Young with her daughters Faith and Hope who were born in a Sydney hospital on Thursday

An Australian woman has miraculously given birth to conjoined twins with one body and two brains despite doctors initially telling them to terminate the pregnancy.

Renee Young and Simon Howie, of Tregear in Sydney's west, welcomed their daughters on Thursday six weeks before they were due.

The couple, who found out via an ultrasound that the twins they were expecting was in fact one child with two symmetrical faces and two brains connected by the one brain stem, said doctors were shocked by the girls' exceptional progress.

Faith and Hope were born with a rare condition called diprosopus, which means they share the same body and organs but have separate brains and two faces

Proud mother: Faith and Hope are now in a stable condition and breathing without support, after initial doubts 

'They are breathing perfectly on their own and feeding,' Mr Howie told Woman's Day.

Ms Young gave birth to the girls, named Faith and Hope, via an emergency caesarean at Blacktown Hospital last Thursday.

The girls were born with a rare condition called diprosopus, which means they share the same body and vital organs but have their own faces and brains which are connected by only one brain stem.

'Even though there is only one body, we call them our twins. To us, they are our girls and we love them,' Mr Howie said.  

They were transferred to the Children's Hospital at Westmead shortly after they were born.

'We have no idea how long they will be in hospital. We just want to bring them home, happy and healthy to make our family a little bit bigger and a bit more chaotic,' Mr Howie said.

As the parents of seven other children, Renee and her husband Simon Howie never considered terminating while the girls grew healthy 

The condition is so rare that only 35 cases have ever been recorded and none have survived.

Due to the incredibly complex nature of their condition, doctors are so unsure about what to expect from the twin’s condition that they are being forced to make their prognoses day by day. 

Mr Howie confirmed that specialists are being called in to decipher a range of problems and assess the twins in great depth, from the functioning of their lungs and blood vessels to decisions about how best to proceed with feeding. 

But despite all the forewarned medial problems likely to come their way, Ms Young and Mr Howie are just happy their girls are alive and well. 

'I think they're beautiful and Simon thinks they're beautiful so really that's all that matters,' Ms Young told A Current Affair.

Their mother Renee gave birth to the girls via an emergency caesarean at Blacktown Hospital last Thursday

From as early as 28 weeks into Ms Young’s pregnancy, specialists were concerned about grave developmental issues.

One of the biggest predicted survival risks from their doctor Greg Kesby, was that the babies would be unable to breathe on their own.

The couple, who are parents to seven other children, were also told early on in the pregnancy not to keep the child ‘because it would be looked upon by the public as a freak’.

They defied the doctors because Ms Young had never terminated a pregnancy and because they had a family 'that gives us a lot of support'.

At first, things certainly looked to be taking a turn for the worst as Ms Young unexpectedly went into labour at only 32 weeks last Thursday, and was forced to have an emergency caesarean.

But despite problems from the first moments of their birth, in which Faith and Hope were not heard to be breathing despite having a clear singular heartbeat, the girls have now defied all odds and are currently in a stable state and breathing without any assistance.

Although the couple were aware from the early stages of pregnancy that their children would have great developmental problems, they explained that while the girls continued to grow healthily, they couldn’t come to terms with letting their unborn twins go. 

'We sort of looked at it as; it'd be the same as being a child with autism or Down syndrome. I sort of don't believe in terminating the baby if it's healthy and growing fine and everything is going to plan,' Mr Howie said.

The proud parents of the small survivors have braced themselves for a difficult path ahead and refuse to say goodbye prematurely.

'I would say, if I only get two days with the baby, I only get two days with the baby - at least I have some time with it,' Ms Young said.

DIPROSOPUS CONDITION MEDICAL FACTS

• The rare condition diprosopus is also known as craniofacial duplication.
• Diprosopus refers to a baby born with a single torso, normal limbs and facial features, which are duplicated to a degree.
• In mild instances the baby may have a duplicated nose and the eyes may be spaced far apart. But in extreme cases the entire face can be replicated, hence the name diprosopus - Greek for two-faced.
• Most babies born with diprosopus are stillborn, and there are fewer than 50 cases documented since 1864.
• Where a baby is born with two complete identical faces, the condition is considered a rare variant of conjoined twinning.
• But while conjoined twinning is the result of an incomplete separation of two embryos, diprosopus is caused by abnormal activity of the protein Sonic Hedgehog (SHH).
• The protein is responsible for signalling craniofacial patterning during embroyonic development, and among other things governs the width of facial features.
• Where the protein is found in excess, a baby will have wider facial features, and in extreme cases it can cause the duplication of those features.
• Diprosopus can be deteched via ultrasound in pregnancy, or via CT scanning.
• One of the first indications of the condition is the detection of abnormally high amount of amniotic fluid present within the amniotoc sac.
• There is currently no treatment to cure the condition and because of its rarity few treatment options or corrective surgery techniques exist.

Source: The Embryo Project Encyclopedia

Culled from DAILY MAIL

Saudi Arabia sentences blogger Raif Badawi to 10 yrs in prison for "insulting Islam"

Mr Badawi's sentence was increased after he appealed against an earlier verdict

Continue reading the main story

A Saudi court has imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi for 10 years for "insulting Islam" and setting up a liberal web forum, local media report.

He was also sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ordered to pay a fine of 1 million riyals ($266,000; £133,000) 

Amnesty International called the verdict "outrageous" and urged the authorities to quash the verdict.

Mr Badawi, the co-founder of a website called the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested in 2012.

A Saudi newspaper close to the government reported that he had lost his appeal against an earlier, more lenient sentence of seven years and three months in jail and 600 lashes.

Last year he was cleared of apostasy, which could have carried a death sentence.

Mr Badawi had previously called for 7 May to be a "day for Saudi liberals". The website he set up has since been closed.

Amnesty International describes him as a "prisoner of conscience" and has called for his release.

"Raif Badawi is the latest victim to fall prey to the ruthless campaign to silence peaceful activists in Saudi Arabia," it said in a statement.

Last October a Saudi journalist was freed after spending a year and a half in prison for writing insulting tweets about the Prophet Muhammad.

Hamza Kashgari fled Saudi Arabia for Malaysia in 2012 but was extradited just days later. He was released last year after making a public apology.

Culled from BBC

Our uncle raped us when we were 6yrs old, says Edinburgh twins

Harrowing: After suffering in silence for almost 30 years, Rachel (left) and Tracy (right) finally spoke out

Innocent: The twins were just six years old when they were first raped by Mccallum

'That man’s evil, he’s a beast, he’s a paedophile. In fact jail’s too good for him,' says Tracy Brown. 'I feel bitter towards him because he’ll never realise what he’s done.'

Tracy and her twin sister Rachel Steadwood, now 38 and from Edinburgh, were just six years old when their childhood came to an abrupt end.

Unbeknown to each other, both had been attacked and brutally raped by a man they considered to be family, the husband of their Aunt Mary, John McCallum.

It took another 20 years before the twins plucked up the courage to go to the police and last September, the pair were finally given the justice they craved when McCallum was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his crimes.

Despite the verdict, however, the pair say they will never get over what happened to them and will never forgive their 'monster' uncle.

The girls' ordeal began in the summer of 1978, while they were staying with their much-loved Aunt Mary, then 16, who was married to a 19-year-old traveller named John McCallum.

For the twins, the carefree summers spent travelling were the highlight of their year, with both remembering golden days spent roaming the countryside around Loanhead in Midlothian.

'Aunty Mary was like a second mum,' remembers Tracy. 'Even now I love her to bits.  She was always there, we used to like school holidays, constantly we used to go with her.'

'We went all over the place,' adds Rachel. 'We'd stay in caravans, trailers, as you would class them.  It was totally exciting.'

But the idyll was about to turn into a nightmare as McCallum, previously thought of as a 'nice man' by the twins, turned his peverted attentions to first Tracy and then Rachel.

'After raping me, he opened the door and acted as normal,' remembers Tracey of the first time her uncle attacked her.

Tracy, who, like her sister, was repeatedly abused between the ages of six and 13, adds: 'I remember him turning round and saying that there could be blood there as well. And I remember that I cried myself to sleep that night.

'I thought I must have done something wrong. I must have done something for him to have done that because you just don’t do that to people. 

'It took me a long time to realise I never done nothing wrong.  It wasn’t me, it was him.  He was in the wrong.'

Evil: John McCallum, from Midlothian, was sentenced to 10 years for his crimes in September 2013

She adds: 'You’re only a wee child, and how do you know that’s not normal?'

It wasn't long before Rachel too fell victim to McCallum. 'Aunty Mary was away - I think she was at my granny’s,' she recalls.

'And John shouted me to come through to his bed. And he got himself on top of me. His exact words, on my telling him it was sore, him telling me it would be alright, it’d only hurt for a minute.

'It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t have a choice,' she continues. 'This man done what he did to us, and there was nothing I could do about it.

'I wasn’t strong enough then.  Then I didn’t think I’d have been believed because, well, I was feared I was feared of destroying everybody’s life, my Aunty Mary’s life.'

The abuse continued for more than a decade but, incredibly, neither twin knew what was happening to the other.

Both, however, began struggling at school, regularly missing classes, and grew apart with both harbouring resentment towards the other.

'I never thought that it was happening to Rachel,' says Tracy. 'I just believed it was happening to me because I was his special twin.

Childhood: The girls spent childhood summers staying with their aunt Mary on a traveller camp like this one

'I’ve blamed her, I thought I was the only one, and I’ve blamed her all my life basically for not getting anything what I got. But you know what? She got it too - she’s been punished all her life as well.'

Their ordeal finally came to an end when their Aunt Mary, fed up with her husband's womanising ways, divorced him in 1986 when the girls were 13.

Although they soon lost contact with McCallum, both suffered flashbacks and Tracy succumbed to severe depression.

Rachel, meanwhile, found herself spiralling into a vicious circle of drugs, unstable relationships and even contemplated suicide.

'I never dealt with it because it’s there every day of your life,' she says. 'I thought I was getting through life OK but I wasn't because I ended up taking drugs, I tried to take my own life twice.

'I’ve fought eating disorders, I fought depression, so I’ve had a multitude of things, all while thinking that I was coping when I wasn’t coping, but that was my way of getting through what had happened to me.'

For more than 17 years, the sisters kept the truth about McCallum to themselves, telling no one - not even each other - until, during a rare meeting at their brother David's funeral - they finally plucked up the courage to confide in each other.

'We were sitting at the front door, and I asked her had any bad things ever happened to her, and she says “yes.”,' recalls Tracy.

'We never spoke about it again. I was so sad - even now we’ve never really sat down and really spoke about it.'

While the sisters struggled to come to terms with what had happened, McCallum remained free and continued as he always had.

'I thought she thought that we had been with him in that [sexual] sense, so I looked at her and I went: “It’s not what you think.” But after a chance conversation between Rachel and her aunt Mary, his trouble-free lifestyle was about to come to an end.

'And she looked at me and she went: “What do you mean?”  I went: “We didn’t have a choice.”  She went: "What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?”  

'I went: “We didn’t, he raped us, sexually abused us.”  And that was it, that was the start of it.'

Days later, the sisters finally reported McCallum to the police and he was arrested within hours. In September 2013, he went on trial for the rapes and sexual assaults of his two nieces more than 30 years earlier.

Despite protesting his innocence and later offering to take a lie detector test, the 15-strong jury found him guilty on two counts of rape and four other sexual offences, and he was handed a 10 year prison term.

For the sisters, the overwhelming emotion was one of relief. 'Finally, I could speak out and tell everybody what an animal he was,' says Rachel.

'I didn’t have to be scared of him any longer. I could stand up and shout as loud as I wanted: “That man raped me, that man sexually abused me, that man’s a monster."'

'That man took my life, that’s what he done,' adds Tracy. 'He put me in the dark but now I’m out of the dark and I’ve got my life back.'

And the twins, torn apart by what happened to them, have since revived their relationship and say they're now closer than ever.

'I could never have done this without my sister, she’s my world, she’s my twin now,' adds Tracey. 'I used to have a sister, but now I’ve got my twin - something I should have had all my life, but he destroyed that.  

'But now I’ve got her and he can’t destroy it anymore.'

Tracy Brown and Rachel Steadwood appeared on Britain's Darkest Taboos on the Crime + Investigation Network (Sky 553, Virgin 237 and BT 433)

Culled from Daily Mail

Indian teenager cuts off his tongue in bid to please his 'god'

Extreme act of devotion: Indian teenager Lalmohan Soren sliced off his tongue with a blunt blade in an attempt to earn the blessing of his God Lord Shiva at a Hindu temple in Dugda, Jharkhand

An Indian teenager sliced off his tongue with a blunt blade in an extreme act of devotion to his Hindu god.

Lalmohan Soren, 17, was sitting at Mahedevgarha Temple, in Dugda, Jharkhand, when worshippers spotted blood splattered across the floor as they filled the temple for their morning prayers.

Lalmohan's tongue was inside a bowl next to his feet with a note saying: ‘I have cut off my tongue and offered it to Lord Shiva.

'Please do not throw me out of the temple, I just want to sit here at the feet of the Lord’.

Horrific: Lalmohan Soren, 17, was sitting at Mahedevgarha Temple (above) when worshippers spotted blood splattered across the floor as they filled the temple for their morning prayers

The temple leader was informed and eventually he managed to persuade Lalmohan to go to hospital.

Doctors tried stitching his tongue back together but failed and eventually Lalmohan was discharged after a few days.

This area of India is infamous for its superstitious Santhal tribes who practice unusual rituals to please their Gods.

Lalmohan is now at home recovering - unable to talk and feeding on a liquid diet - but proud of his actions.

'His future is up to the Gods': Lalmohan is now recovering at home with his family - unable to talk and feeding on a liquid diet - but proud of his actions

His family are both shocked but accepting of his actions.

Mother Lalmuni Soren said: 'My son has been involved in religious practises since childhood. 

'He takes a keen interest in rituals, but I never believed he’d one day severe his tongue to please the Gods.

‘I don’t know what will happen to him now, he’ll never be able talk properly again, so what future he will have is up to the Gods.'

However, the mother-of-four was sure her son would be blessed.

She added: ‘My son has sacrificed his tongue to please the God so we’re sure the God will fulfill his wishes and give him a good life.’

Locals are surprised at the media attention Lalmohan's actions have attracted as this kind of ritual is normal in their community, saying 'there’s nothing new in it'.

Manoj Sharma, a local resident, said: ‘The tribal people are very superstitious and have always practiced weird rituals. In 2011 a boy severed two of his fingers and offered it to the God at the same temple. 

'This incident is nothing new to us but yes, it is bizarre to many other people.’

Culled from DAILY MAIL

White supremacist couple kiss and grin as they're sentenced for murder

Jeremy and Christine Moody grinned and giggled as they were jailed for life

A couple who murdered a registered sex offender and his wife showed no remorse as they were sentenced to life in prison this week, with one defiantly shouting: “That’s what child molesters get!”

Jeremy and Christine Moody had planned to kill multiple convicted pedophiles, but were caught after butchering Charles Parker, 59, and his wife Gretchen, 51, in Union, South Carolina.

"Killing that pedophile was the best day of my life," Christine Moody said of killing Parker.

Jeremy Moody, left, talks to his wife, Christine Moody, right, while standing with their lawyers shortly before they were both sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, May 6, 2014, in Union, S.C. Prosecutors said the couple killed Charles Parker in his home in July 2013 because he was a sex offender and his wife Gretchen Parker because she was there. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) 

Initially, the couple apologised to the judge and asked for a 30-year sentence so they could see their children and grow old together, New York Daily News.

But after the judge handed the pair the maximum punishment – stating they had no right to act as a judge and a jury – the couple shared a brief kiss and revealed their true colours.

“See you perverts later,” Jeremy Moody shouted at Parker’s family as he walked out of court. “That’s what child molesters get.”

The pair believed they had a divine assignment to kill all sex offenders, said psychologist Harold Morgan, who analysed Jeremy Moody.

On the day of the murder, the couple drove their car to Parker's house and popped the hood as if they were having car trouble.

When Parker came out to help, Jeremy Moody pulled a gun and ordered him inside,prosecutor Kevin Brackett said.

The couple then told Parker and his wife exactly why they were going to kill them, Brackett said.

Jeremy Moody, 31, shot the couple, then his 37-year-old wife stabbed them.

A surveillance camera on Parker’s land caught them leaving, and deputies recognized Jeremy Moody from the word “skinhead” tattooed on his neck and the “Made in America” tattoo on the side of his head.

Both were convicted of murder, kidnapping and first-degree burglary.

Culled from Huff Post

Woman 'posted fake rape me invitation online' to get her female colleague attacked sexually by men.

Joanne Berry outside Maidstone Crown Court

A woman tried to get a female colleague raped at home by men she tricked in online sex chatrooms, a court heard yesterday.

Joanne Berry, 30, is alleged to have posed on websites including ‘Cougar Shag’ as a woman who liked “role play” sex and wanted “to create some sort of rape scenario”.

The office administrator from Grove Park, south east London, allegedly then invited the men to go to her home and carry out a fantasy rape.

However, she gave the name, telephone number and address of a colleague who she had fallen out with and who cannot be named for legal reasons, the jury was told.

The court heard that on one occasion a man, Dean Hicks, knocked at the front door of the alleged intended victim then burst in to “rape” her as instructed by Berry.

Prosecutor Andrew Espley told Maidstone Crown Court in Kent: “Joanne Berry arranged for men to go round to [the colleague’s] house and rape her.

“How did she do it? She went on various sex chat websites.

“She pretended she was [the colleague], she gave [the colleague’s] address, she used her name, she gave the registration of her car which was going to be parked outside, pretended to be her.

“She then told the men to come round and engage in a fantasy rape game with her, basically to rape her.”

The court heard that the incidents came after Berry and her colleague fell out in March 2012 over the accused’s own claims that she had been raped by two men.

The prosecution described the claim as ‘made up’.

The court heard that Berry's colleague tried to support Berry but later asked her not to contact her anymore and accused her of being an ‘attention seeker’ when she refused to co-operate with the police.

Mr Espley said Berry's colleague later received a series of texts from Berry saying that “she had thought she could trust her and now she had lost her job and lost her as a friend”.

The court head that a few days later the colleague's sister, who lived with the colleague, was at home alone when she heard banging on a door, but did not answer, believing it was next door.

The following day, on April 28, 2012, the sister answered the door after hearing another loud knock to a man who asked if her name was [the victim’s name].

Mr Espley said: “She said she wasn’t and asked who he was. He said that he had been speaking to [the victim] all day online.

“[The sister] thought that he might have the wrong address and the man said: ‘This is a f***ing wind up’.” He then left.”

The jury was told that when the sister returned home later that day she found two messages on her answer phone, one saying: “I am getting bored of this now, you are playing games” and a second saying: “Sorry about that I think I have the wrong number”.

The court heard that the following morning the colleague was at home when she heard a banging on the front door and answered it to find a man she did not know standing there.

Mr Espley said: “He asked if she was [her name] and when she said she was he tried to push his way in.

“She immediately called up to her sister and at this point the man stopped and said: ‘Is this a wind up?’

“He then began to say he had been chatting to someone online who he believed was her and that she wanted him to go to the house and carry out a fantasy rape by knocking on the front door and then trying to push his way in.

“The man said that once he had carried out the fantasy rape he was to ask for information about Joanne Berry.”

The court heard that Mr Hicks told the victim she should phone the police and he waited in his car.

Berry was eventually arrested at home on May 27, 2012.

The court heard Berry’s laptop was seized and a large number of “chat line posts” were found.

Mr Espley said: “In short, a number of men took the invitation from Joanne Berry to rape [the victim] seriously.”

Berry is charged with putting her colleague in fear of violence, committing an offence of assault with the intent of committing a relevant sexual offence, the common assault of the victim and attempting to cause the victim to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.

The prosecution claims Berry committed the offences by procurement.

Berry denies all four charges.

The trial continues.
Culled from Mirror News